


Flatline

by aderyn



Series: Natural Facts [13]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Gen, cardioversion, pre and post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-03 00:16:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I fucking flatlined,” says John, down at the Tir Na Nog, just behind Lestrade’s right ear. </p>
<p>“You need to calm down, darlin’,” John says, conversationally, as if he always says that, as if he always says it in that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flatline

**Author's Note:**

> For [whitefang3927](http://archiveofourown.org/users/whitefang3927/pseuds/whitefang3927), enabler extraordinaire, who lobbed the word “flatline” in my direction.

 

_"On the left side, he strikes me with such force,  
That with the agony the heart rebounds." --Dante Alighieri_

 

“I fucking flatlined,” says John, down at the Tir Na Nog, just behind Lestrade’s right ear. He’s not usually so cavalier with that metaphor, but he’s more than a little drunk. (Is he talking about the lab at Baskerville, about coming home to a naked poisoner handcuffed to Sherlock’s bedpost?)  It could be any number of things (or not, because it’s not easy to flatline John Watson).  Lestrade doesn’t ask. He signals the bartender for another.

*******

Sherlock’s blood pressure is on the high side, like his metabolism and his tolerance for cholinergics.

“You need to calm down, darlin’,” John says, conversationally, as if he always says that, as if he always says it in that way.

When Sherlock asks him what to do about it, John says, “Eat something other than sodium and sucrose?”

He’s smiling; they’ve just put a case to bed and they can sleep. He’ll give Sherlock some real advice in the morning.

It’s two months before Sherlock will die. He smiles back and goes to the sink for dilution.

*******

Giving up is fresh hell on a saucer.  Sherlock never gives up, not even when he should. Neither of them does.

The absence of breath doesn’t deter them. The absence of pulse doesn’t deter them. ( _Vasopressin, maybe, or an old-fashioned shock._ )

The heart rebounds with a blow.


End file.
